During traffic emergencies and other signaling, emergency workers, including police and fire departments, typically use combustible road flares to serve as warning devices in the vicinity of traffic accidents and other emergency situations. Typical road flares are comprised of a combination of strontium nitrate and one or more of the following compounds: potassium nitrate, sulfur, potassium perchlorate and a variety of other compounds. The flare may include a striker mechanism on the order of that used with a typical “strike anywhere match” to start the product burning. Many of the unfortunate side products of the use of road flares of this design is that they are a hot burning mass of solid chemical compound, and as such, can lead to burns of the personnel using them and damage to clothing equipment associated with the persons using the equipment. Further, such flammable road flares create a mess on the roads, and when it is desired to extinguish the road flares, they must be kicked or smothered in some fashion to break apart the burning segment from the remainder of the flare to quickly extinguish the flare. This, again, can lead to damage to shoes, boots, and other clothing. Therefore, the common flammable road flare is, at a minimum, a nuisance to those who use it, and a non-flammable road flare would be of great utility. Further, for police departments and fire departments and other emergency units, the cost of flammable road flares each year is a significant expense, and it would be preferable to minimize this expense.
Such elimination of flammable road flare and the damage and expense associated with it is provided by the present invention which comprises a rechargeable LED flashing, and non-flashing unit, which may be recharged for repeated use. The present invention also may be positioned within a base to serve as a fixed position road flare, or the invention may be removed from the base and hand-held to use as a signal for directing traffic and the like during emergency situations. In addition, the present invention also includes, in one embodiment, LEDs on the top end of the device which are aimed upwardly. The device, when inserted into a base, can be used to serve as landing lights to assist in the landing of helicopters. This latter feature is particularly useful at rural traffic accident scenes or other rural areas when it is desired to use a helicopter to medically evacuate an injured person.